An ability to print within a computing environment generally ranges from desirable to indispensable. Conventional printers, and associated printing techniques, typically involve installation of a print driver within the context of an operating system or platform of an associated computer. The print driver is generally specific to the associated (type of) printer, and to the operating system, and enables applications running in the context of the operating system to communicate with (e.g., send print jobs to) the printer. Thus, in an example user experience, an owner of a computer running a particular operating system purchases a printer, and then installs a version of the printer driver associated with the user's operating system onto the computer. In other example scenarios, a printer (i.e., associated printer driver) may be installed in the context of a network.
In either case, the printer driver may include a capability file that specifies the capabilities of the printer such as double-sided printing, separator pages, color or image quality options, and/or staples, for example. Typically, all or a portion of the capabilities of a printer are presented as printing options in a print dialog, depending on the application providing the print dialog. For example, a user may wish to print a certain document and select a print option from a drop-down menu, for example. In response, the user may receive a print dialog providing one or more printers that are connected to the computer either locally or via the network. Further, the print dialog may include a number of different printing options associated with each printer. The display format of the printing options for a particular printer is determined from its respective capability file, which is determined by the printer's vendor. As such, the same printing option may be displayed in the print dialog according to a number of different formats because the format is determined by each individual vendor.
In one example, regarding a resolution printing option, the print capability file for a first printer may specify the display format as a selection between “high” and “low”, and the print capability file for a second printer may specify the display format as a selection between “600×600” and “300×300.” In another example, with respect to page orientation, the print capability file for the first printer may specify the display format as a selection between “portrait” and “landscape”, and the print capability file for a second printer may specify the display format as a selection between “vertical” and “horizontal.”
In contrast to conventional print paradigms, a cloud printing system may provide users with an ability to print content from virtually any application or device, e.g., using any cloud-aware printer. In other words, the cloud printing system may provide an ability for virtually any application running on any device within a network to communicate with a cloud print service, to thereby print to any printer that is also in communication with the cloud print service. In one example, in the context of cloud printing, an application may send a print request, over a network, to the cloud print server for printing a document using the cloud print service. In return, the cloud print server may provide a print dialog including a number of available cloud-printers, as well as printing options associated with each available cloud-aware printer. Upon selection of a printer and the print options, the cloud print service may convert the print job to a format suitable for the cloud-aware printer, and then transmit the print job having the converted format, over the network, to the cloud aware printer.
However, understanding and incorporating the various different display formats of printing options provided by individual vendors of printers into a cloud-based print service may be difficult and challenging. For example, rendering a user-friendly print dialog having a uniform set of printing options for a relatively large number of cloud aware printers in the cloud environment presents its own set of challenges that are not encountered in conventional print paradigms.